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Thursday, December 31, 2015

The 100-100 Club Revisited

It takes exceptional defensive versatility to accumulate at least 100 steals and at least 100 blocked shots in the same season. The ABA officially tracked steals and blocked shots from 1972-73 until 1975-76 (after which the ABA merged with the NBA), while the NBA has officially recorded steals and blocked shots since 1973-74. I first wrote about pro basketball's 100-100 Club in the April 2002 issue of Basketball Digestand then I revisited the subject for NBCSports.com in November 2006. The version of the latter article that I posted at 20 Second Timeout was updated to include the 2006-07 season; in the past eight years, there have been nine 100-100 seasons recorded by a total of seven players. Six players joined the 100-100 Club since the 2006-07 season: Dwyane
Wade (2009), Dwight Howard (2011), Kevin Durant (2013), Andre Drummond
(2014), Anthony Davis (2015) and Nerlens Noel (2015). Josh Smith logged
his first 100-100 season in 2006-07 and has added three more such
seasons to his total (2008, 2010, 2014) to move into a tie with Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar, Terry Tyler and Andrei Kirilenko for 11th-14th place on the
all-time list. Smith is the only player who has had more than one 100-100 season since 2006-07.

Only 58 players have had a 100-100 season and 32 of those players have accomplished the feat just once. Julius Erving not only founded the 100-100 Club in 1972-73 with 181 steals and 127 blocked shots for the ABA's Virginia Squires (ranking third and seventh in the league respectively in those categories) but he remains the 100-100 Club king with a record 12 such seasons, a mark tied by Hakeem Olajuwon. Kevin Garnett had eight 100-100 seasons before turning 30 but injuries and the aging process stalled his attempt to match Erving and Olajuwon.

The even more exclusive 200-100 Club still has just four members: Michael Jordan (twice), Julius Erving, Hakeem Olajuwon and Scottie Pippen.

The 100-200 Club has expanded to 14 members, welcoming Anthony Davis last season as he tallied exactly 100 steals and exactly 200 blocked shots. Josh Smith had 123 steals and 227 blocked shots in 2007-08, becoming the eighth player with at least two such seasons. Olajuwon had 11 100-200 seasons, followed by David Robinson (seven), Abdul-Jabbar (three) and Ben Wallace (three).

In 2014-15, Nerlens Noel became the ninth member of the Top Ten Club by ranking seventh in blocked shots per game (1.9) and 10th in steals per game (1.8). Erving had six seasons during which he ranked in the top 10 in both steals per game and blocked shots per game. Olajuwon did this four times and no one else has done it more than twice. Josh Smith very narrowly missed the cut in 2009-10, ranking third in blocked shots per game and 11th in steals per game, just .0247 steals per game behind Stephen Jackson.

4 Comments:

Two items stood out to me:*What does it say about the defensive duo of Jordan and Pippen that two members of the same team made a list with only 4 members in NBA HISTORY?!

*Sam Lacey must be underrated- because not only did he have these surprising "stocks" statistics but he was also one of the best passing centers in NBA history (along with such names as Walton, Alvan Adams)

Jordan and Pippen comprised the greatest perimeter defensive duo on one team in pro basketball history. Pippen also could guard many power forwards for short stretches and, in some matchups, was even nominally assigned to the opposing center (most notably in the Finals against Utah when he was assigned to Foster or Ostertag, which facilitated Pippen's ability to be a help defender but was only possible because Pippen had the ability to fight with power forwards and centers for rebounds).

Lacey was a very skillful and versatile player who is somewhat overlooked/forgotten because (1) he played for non-contending teams and (2) he played during an era when the NBA was populated by numerous future Hall of Fame centers, including Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Willis Reed, Dave Cowens, Bob Lanier, Artis Gilmore, Bill Walton, Bob McAdoo and Moses Malone.

Oh, David! David! You list Hall of Fame centers who were contemporaries of Sam Lacey and you leave out my favorite player of all time: (wait for it...wait for it...)DAN ISSEL! And you're an ABA aficionado as myself!! I have the audio from Denver's first home game in the NBA (76-77) and it was against Lacey and the KC Kings. At one point, Issel obviously gives that great head fake to Lacey and goes by him for the dunk because you can hear the crowd response in McNichols and Al Albert says "And Issel hangs Lacey out to dry!"

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